


Recruitment Party

by sgamadison



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:47:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgamadison/pseuds/sgamadison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere in an alternative universe, two people meet in a bar...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recruitment Party

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a coda for the dream sequence in the McShep story I wrote called [Enigma](http://archiveofourown.org/works/65239). It might make more sense if you read that one first. As such this is completely AU. I've been thinking about this story for a while now, and today I started writing and didn't stop until it was done.
> 
> This story takes place one year after the events in Captain America: The First Avenger and the Marvel One Shot short film, Agent Carter. The song lyrics, the film and literature references, the weapons, and the Chanctonbury Ring couplet are all period compliant.

It had been years since she’d set foot on her native soil, but the soft, spongy ground felt right in a way she couldn’t explain. It wasn’t just grass and dirt, it was turf. Lovely, smooth, inviting _turf_.  It was meant to be galloped across. She thought of a time when that would have been normal for her—to wake at first light and go down to the stables, saddling Primrose and heading out onto the Downs. A thick slab of bread with butter and an apple stolen from the kitchen, and she would stay out for hours, coming home wind-burned, happy, and reeking of horse. It had been an uncomplicated life. She probably would have grown up, married, raised her children and taken over the family stud in due time, had it not been for the war. William Carter had been known for the quality of his hunters and jumpers. He’d produced some of the finest horseflesh in the South of England and Margaret had been his only heir.

Ah well, the war changed a lot of things.

In some ways, it had been easier to go to America and work for the Scientific Strategic Reserve with Colonel Phillips than it had been to remain in England.  She’d always had a gift for numbers; she could have gone to Bletchley Park with all the other code-breakers, but somehow working in the United States had allowed her to retain the slight fiction that everything was normal in the town of Claire, where she’d grown up. That her parents were still alive. That the horses still cropped grass quietly in sunlight fields and the old fat Labrador would waddle out to bark anyone who drove up to the house.  She knew it was only a story she told herself sometimes late at night, that it wasn’t real, but reality was an ugly place. She did what she did for the child she’d been and the life she’d once had.  She did it for the turf. This was her land. Hers.  No army, no weapon, no superpower could take this from her again. Not while she still drew breath. It was enough to know that the land here still belonged to England and that the war was over. She no longer needed to go back to the home that was no more.

On rare occasions, she imagined her and Steve in Claire together.  Walking the grounds of the Carter estate, riding out onto the lush, rolling green hills. Holding hands at the top of Chanctonbury Ring. A stolen moment in the stables. Putting their child up on his first pony. The pain of such fantasies seldom made the indulgence worth it, however.  She’d had a little too much time for reflection today, however, and the long drive through muddy lanes had brought alive the memories she thought she’d boxed forever and laid aside with a loving smile.

As the car bumped along the narrow roads, the words of the World War I poet Phillip Johnson came to mind.

_I can't forget the lane that goes from Steyning to the Ring_ __  
_In summer time, and on the Down how larks and linnets sing_  
 _High in the sun. The wind comes off the sea, and Oh the air!_  
 _I never knew till now that life in old days was so fair._  
 _But now I know it in this filthy rat infested ditch_  
 _When every shell may spare or kill - and God alone knows which._  
 _And I am made a beast of prey, and this trench is my lair._  
 _My God! I never knew till now that those days were so fair._  
 _So we assault in half an hour, and, - it's a silly thing -_  
 _I can't forget the narrow lane to Chanctonbury Ring._

No, neither could she.

It was well after sundown when the car came to a stop in front of the pub. A sign hung from a post over the door, proclaiming it to be the Leathern Bottle.  Light from the pub spilled out into the street, a bright triangle of illumination that marked the damp pavement.

Peggy flinched a little at the sight. It hadn’t been that long ago since blackout curtains had been mandatory and there had been stiff penalties for anyone violating these rules.  Any show of light had been an invitation for bombers to attack quiet, unsuspecting villages.

Even now, with the war over, some habits died hard.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” She could hear the concern in her driver’s voice. A part of her wanted to relate to him the things she’d already survived: running full tilt into an armed encampment with only an assault rifle and a team of highly trained personnel to back her up. Defending a security breach during a highly classified experimental program to create a super soldier. Defying orders to commandeer a plane into enemy territory.  Yes, that was a good one.  She smiled to herself remembering that one.

Losing the love of her life to the war.

No. She didn’t need his help tonight.

“I’ll be fine, Sergeant.” Peggy infused her voice with all the authority of old. This was a delicate mission. She didn’t need someone buggering it up for her.

“Yes, ma’am.”  Her driver didn’t sound convinced. Too bad. As long as he followed her instructions, it didn’t matter, however. All that mattered was the mission objective.

She got out of the car, her heels sinking into the mud from the evening’s rain.  The ground tugged at her feet, whispering words of love to her.  _England. Home. Welcome back, Peggy_.  The land sent tendrils up to bind her, to anchor her to it once more, but she was made of sterner stuff than that. She noted with idle detachment she would have to clean her shoes before morning.  She came around to the driver’s side of the car and looked in the open window.

“You might as well go around to the hotel,” she said. “I don’t know how long I will be. We’ll be leaving for Southampton at 06:00 in the morning, however.”

Her driver touched his cap and nodded, the engine making a throaty roar as he trundled away into the darkness.

She hoped she wasn’t on a fool’s errand. Smoothing her skirt, she opened the door to the pub.

Inside, it was as though she’d stepped back in time into another world. The heat struck her first: a solid wall of noise and laughter radiating off the humanity within. The air was thick with the smell of cigarette smoke, damp dog, and the yeasty odor of ale. The atmosphere was jovial. It was as though the war had never happened. Mentally, she shook herself. The war had been over for a year now. Life went on.

She quickly took in her surroundings with a trained eye. There were a few weather-beaten farmers playing darts in one corner. Several men at a table laughing over large pints of ale. A solitary man at the bar itself, a crutch at his side as he hunched over his drink.  Two grey-haired old men playing checkers with the intensity of aficionados, smoking pipes heavily as they studied their board. A rather blowsy-looking woman holding court in one corner. Peggy hesitated as she scanned the room, seeking her objective.

“Wow. Where have you been all my life?” The voice in her ear didn’t surprise her. She’d seen the moment out of the corner of her eye and had hoped she’d be spared this kind of attention for once. However, the man who spoke to her was more than a little into his cups. His cheeks were flushed and the red veins across his nose bespoke of this being a habitual state with him.

She smiled politely, but could not help the frost that infused her voice. “No doubt doing something worthwhile. If you will excuse me, I’m meeting someone.”

She started to walk past him when she felt him grab her by the arm.

“Now that’s no way to be—all hoity-toity like that. You’re a pretty hot dame, you know that, right? You could be a little friendlier.”

She looked down at the hand on her wrist and back up at the man’s face. She quelled her initial reaction, which was to strike with an uppercut to the jaw. This wasn’t an enemy agent. This was a solider back from the war. Someone who’d seen too much and didn’t know how to live with it now that the war was over. She leaned in and spoke very carefully, smiling serenely all the while.  “I will start counting. You will let go of my arm before I reach the number three. If you comply with this simple task, I will not deck you.”

He looked at her in blank astonishment, the alcohol delaying his reaction. She let it sink in a moment before she began counting slowly. “One...two...”

He let go abruptly, his face reddening. He turned with a military precision that was only slightly marred by his lack of balance and walked back to his friends at their table, who laughed at his discomfiture.

Sometimes, it paid to have the voice of authority.

She took out her compact, stalling for time as she checked herself in the mirror. Every hair was in place as usual, and her lipstick did not need touching up. Her information had been good. This was the bar where he’d been known to hang out while working at Bletchley. Was she too late? She closed the compact with a snap and replaced it in her clutch. It was then that she saw him. Rodney McKay. The man she’d come here to meet.

She’d almost missed him at first. He was sitting alone on one of the benches, staring down into a half-empty pint of dark ale. The pitcher in front of him gave mute testimony as to the length of time he’d already been there.  She straightened her spine, a small slight movement that would scarcely be noticed by anyone other than herself.  As she walked toward him, her heels clicked authoritatively on the wooden floor.

He’d obviously been drinking heavily.  A keen sense of disappointment ran through her but she controlled it. She was determined to give him the benefit of the doubt, much as she would have done with a young horse, fresh from the stables. He looked owlishly at her approach, squinting with confusion to see her standing in front of him.

“Dr. Rodney McKay?” She was conscious of her voice, light and crisp, just loud enough to carry over the ambient noise in the bar. She hoped it sounded friendly too.

McKay was a type she’d met before. Brilliant. Arrogant. Surprisingly strong of character and yet vulnerable at the same time. She hadn’t expected him to be drunk, though on second thought, perhaps she should have. She would have to handle this one carefully.

He had the baby-fine curls of blond hair that so often seemed to retreat into baldness in middle age. A rain-spattered fedora rested on the table by his hand in the manner of someone who’d only intended to stop in for one drink but had lost track of the time. He was thin. Too thin, as though he’d forgotten to eat for days on end and had to be prodded into it before he became completely dysfunctional. She hardened her heart to any possible reasons he might have for this behavior and reminded herself of her mission. She wouldn’t leave here tonight without McKay on her team.

Bloodshot blue eyes that might have otherwise been attractive narrowed at her words. “Who wants to know?”

Well, that was a different reaction than the one she was used to.  She permitted a small smile to cross her features.  “My name is Peggy Carter. I have a proposition for you.” Instead of offering her hand, she took a seat across from him on the opposite bench.

The pubman was at her side in a flash, even as McKay continued to blink at her in apparent puzzlement as to why she was there.

“Whiskey. Neat.” She placed her order without ever taking her eyes off McKay’s face. McKay took a sip from his pint without asking her for more details. She found herself approving. Good. Liking the man would make things easier.

“Just so you don’t waste your time,” McKay said, showing her a crooked, rueful smile, “you’re barking up the wrong tree. You’re not my type.”

“How fortunate then, that neither of us is looking to go out on a date.” She knew all about his type. It didn’t matter to her. She didn’t know why it should matter to anyone. The best way of diffusing a security risk was to not care about the consequences of the information being released. Having dealt with secrets and classified information for so many years, she had seen the damage that blackmail could do. She was of a ‘publish and be damned’ mentality herself.

There was a certain impish attractiveness to his face when he smiled. He leaned back against the wall and waited her out. She wondered where he’d learned such patience. Her information had suggested he was more volatile and bombastic than this, but then again, he was drunk.

The pubman appeared at the table with her drink, and then hovered expectantly instead of leaving right away.

“To old friends,” McKay said, lifting his pint in a toast.

Something briefly tightened around her throat and brought an unexpected sting of tears to her eyes. “To old friends,” she said in a voice as smoky as the pub. She took a sip from her glass and raised her eyebrows at the bartender. He winked, and moved off toward the bar, whistling merrily.

“What was that about?” McKay was only mildly curious.

She set the glass down on the table, admiring the liquid fire in its amber depths. “This is pre-war whiskey. The good stuff.” Indeed, the alcohol was a smooth and mellow flame glowing within her now. Not like the battery acid that usually passed for whiskey these days.

“Chuck must recognize quality when he sees it.” McKay was enigmatic, but only for a moment. Frustration popped out from his self-control, like a case of measles. “Okay, I give up. What do you want with me? You haven’t come all this way to just to have a drink with me. You aren’t here to seduce me either, at least, not in the straightforward Mata Hari kind of way.”

Peggy permitted herself to smile at that. “What makes you so sure I haven’t come here just to have a drink with you? And why do you say, I’ve come ‘all this way’?”

McKay ran his tongue over his front teeth as he studied her, an expression of focused concentration rather than a sloppy signal of attraction. “You’ve admitted you’re not here on a date. You passed up a number of men to sit here at this table with men.”

“‘They’re either too young or too old.’”

“You’re no Bette Davis,” he riposted, recognizing the song lyrics right away. “I know your type. You’re cut crystal and canapés with a Glock in the handbag under the table.”

“I prefer the Walther PPK. It fits in the purse better. On the other hand, the Colt .45 isn’t bad for day wear.”

They shared a grin. When McKay’s smile began to fade, she continued. “Why did you say, ‘come all this way?’” _Come on, McKay. Impress me._

The look on McKay’s face was decidedly sardonic now. “You didn’t get those shoes locally. They had to come from either New York or Paris, and given the slight Brooklyn accent I hear, I’m betting New York.”

“I don’t have a Brooklyn accent.” She was amused, affronted, and not just a little intrigued at the same time.

McKay tucked his head back on his shoulders and twisted his lips with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t,” she insisted.

He flapped his hand at her in a gesture of ‘whatever’ and reached for his pint again.

She decided it was time to take charge of the conversation. “Whereas you are a transplanted Canadian living and working here in the southeast of England. What brings you here, Dr. McKay?”

“Don’t you mean what keeps me here?” His expression shifted from impish into that of an evil gnome before sorrow suddenly stabbed his features. “Ghosts, Miss Carter. The ghosts of old friends and better times.” He nodded at the benches around them, as though they were full of people only he could see.

She’d thought she’d prepared herself against the kind this kind of sharp remembrance, but the pain of her own losses knifed her just below her heart. If she looked down, she was sure she’d see that she was bleeding. She was staggered by the emotion, as surely as if she’d been caught off-guard by an attacker.  She saw McKay watching her with eyes as bright as an inquisitive squirrel’s, and she wondered how she could have mistaken him for being drunk.

“Have you ever lost anyone. Miss Carter? Someone that you didn’t think you could live without?”

She took a sip of whiskey before answering. “Yes.”

“I thought so.” His face softened. “Then you know. How hard it is to say goodbye.” His thumb stroked the surface of the battered table, worn smooth at the edges from age.

“I do. I also know that you have to move on.  There is no use pining for what might have been when there is still work to do.”

The light in his eyes damped down as though a shutter had been pulled over them. “Ah, yes. Work. I’m tired, Miss Carter. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to sit this one out.” He took another long pull from his pint, wiping the foam off his lip as he set the glass down with a decided thump.

She’s heard that argument before. She understood it, knew what it was like to be so tired, so weary of fighting that her very bones hurt. So heartsick that she just wanted to go home and curl up under a blanket, only she had no home to go to. “If our boys here had chosen to ‘sit this one out’, as you say, Britain, and most likely the world, would now be under Axis control.”

She knew she’d hit home by the way his jaw tightened. Goodness, that glare should be registered as a lethal weapon.

He was building a good head of steam with which to blast her, but she spoke first instead. “Your friend. The one you lost. He was a pilot, wasn’t he?”

She couldn’t believe she’d brought that up. From the look on his face, neither could he.  “Yes. But then you know that, don’t you. You know everything about me, right? You can tell me what color my socks are and how I like my eggs cooked and the name of the cat I had when I was a child.”

“Inky,” she said.  “Though if you had a cat today, I suspect you’d name it Schrodinger.”

His face fell, a caricature of shock for just an instant, until the shields came down into place once more. It was kind of fascinating, really, to watch his face harden into a mask. Blue eyes became steely and his mouth was tight when he spoke. “I also like spearmint gum.”

She placed a hand on the table, palm down. The warm lamplight gleamed off her red nail polish as she slid her hand across the table. “Wrigley’s,” she said, lifting her hand with a little flip of her wrist.

McKay eyed the packet of Doublemint gum as though it was a snake.

“Whoever you are, Miss Carter, I don’t want any part of you or your organization.” McKay clamped his fedora down on his head, half-rising. The bench scraped across the floor as he pushed it back.

“Please,” she said, leaning across the table with an out-raised hand. “Please sit down and hear me out.”

McKay rested one hand on the table, glowering down at her with his head lowered like a bull about to charge. _Nice shoulders_. She squashed her reaction entirely.

“Now you listen to me, Carter. I know secret organizations when I see one.  Believe me, I know how you guys operate. So here’s the deal. You want to expose my relationship with John Sheppard to the world? Be my fucking guest. You don’t get it, do you? You don’t know how little I have left to lose.”

“Sit down, please, Dr. McKay. You misunderstand me. I would never—” she broke off, unable to hide her shock that he thought she was trying to blackmail him.

McKay bit his lower lip briefly and glared at her. “Why else would you bring him up? Unless you were trying to strong arm me into your little recruitment party. I don’t work for any organization that I don’t know anything about, and I’m not going anywhere with you or signing any papers either. Not until I get some answers.”

Instead of replying, Peggy picked up her glass of whiskey and turned it slowly in her hand, staring into its depths. “My friend was a pilot too.”

McKay sat back down on the bench, slowly oozing into position as if drawn against his will. “Bastards,” he said without heat, picking up his own glass again. “Rum bunch the lot of them. Always think they’re invulnerable.” He reached out and swept the gum up off the table, placing it in his pocket.

“Some of them are more invulnerable than others.”

He looked up sharply then. “Until they are not.” His voice was quiet.

“Until they are not,” she agreed. Something choked her as she spoke. She cleared her throat and held out her glass to him. “To bastard invulnerable pilots and the promises they cannot keep.”

McKay’s all too expressive face screwed up tightly at this, as though he was holding back a wall of tears with his skin. “To bastard pilots.”

They clicked glasses. McKay drained the remainder of his. Peggy tossed back the entirety of hers, welcoming the slow burn as it made its way down her throat.  She set her glass upside down on the table with a clink of sound and grinned at McKay’s astonished expression.

Right. To business. “I worked for the SSR in the United States, Dr. McKay. The Scientific Strategic Reserve. You might have heard of us.”

McKay raised an eyebrow. “Heard of. That was about it. It was all very hush-hush.  Above my pay grade.”

“Hmmm. Not by much. You boys at Bletchley were pretty hush-hush too.” She did know, however, that McKay’s work with Radek Zelenka had been instrumental in Alan Turing’s fundamental breakthroughs. The development of great calculating machines that could crunch through thousands of bits of code, never needing to eat or sleep, had been one of the biggest steps forward in the history of ciphers and encryption. History would look back on Turning and call him the father of computer science.

If she was lucky, no one would ever remember Rodney McKay, PhD, at all.

“Look,” she said, making up her mind. “I’m going to trust you with something, non-disclosure agreement or not. I’ve been commissioned to take charge of a new investigative and research unit. I need people like you. People who are brilliant, inventive, and can think beyond the puzzle box.”

Instead of being flattered, McKay looked bored. “Not interested. I’m headed off to Cairo in the morning.”

“What’s in Cairo?” She asked even though she knew the answer.

He tapped the side of his nose. “Ah, that’s the question, isn’t it? There’s this thing they dug up at Giza, but it doesn’t match any known Egyptian artifacts. As a matter of fact, no one can identify the society that built it. Some people seem to think there used to be some sort of power source with it—but if so, it would have to be massive. And if this giant ring has a power source, then what is its purpose? That’s what I want to know.” His hands had gone into motion during his speech, emphasizing odd words, such as ‘ring’ and ‘power’ and ‘massive’.”

“You’re a little too late, McKay.” She couldn’t help playing with him just a bit. “You know Hitler was obsessed with religious artifacts. Everyone behind the scenes knew about his searches for the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. He took your Giant Ring from the Egyptians during the war in Africa and relocated it.”

McKay’s face fell. “How do you know this? I have it on good authority it’s still in Egypt.” His huffy voice was only slightly blurred with alcohol.

Peggy shook her head. “We won the war, remember. Trust me on this one. It’s not in Egypt.”

McKay slumped back against the wall, pushing his fedora back off his forehead to scratch it. “Well, crap.”

Peggy pressed her advantage. “So that’s what you would do now, study ancient civilizations and artifacts because they are dead and gone and incapable of hurting you anymore?”

The look he gave her was one of withering disdain. “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Besides, I believe the past is our future. This past. This inexplicable artifact buried in the desert. This thing that needs a power source to make it run.  This thing no one can explain.”

“Ah, I see. Instead of defending us against future threats, you want to go haring off searching for El Dorado or the city of Atlantis.”

He frowned. It should have been intimidating, but he looked a little too disgruntled for that. “I think of it as insurance against future wars of this kind. Where good men don’t have to throw their lives away to stop an insane regime from taking over the world.”

“No one threw their life away.” Her words were gentle. “It was necessary.”

He thumped his fist down on the table hard enough to make the glasses jump. “It shouldn’t _be_ necessary!”

Heads turned in their direction and then away again. Typical British.

“Ow,” McKay said, cradling his hand and rubbing it.

Peggy ignored his whining. “What if I told you that S.H.I.E.L.D. saw things your way? That one of the things this organization will be doing is seeking out exactly the sort of technology you’ve mentioned and determining where the threats are and how to implement the knowledge gained for the protection of the free world?”

“Shield? How pretentious is that.”

“I didn’t name it,” Peggy said a bit sharply. “You can’t believe how annoying it is to have to type out that acronym every time I need to use it.”

McKay beamed with his elf-grin again. “What’s it stand for, anyway?”

Peggy leaned in across the table further and lowered her voice. “Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division.”

McKay had leaned forward as well to hear her answer; now he gave a sudden yelp of laughter. “Oh, that’s terrible! Supreme Headquarters? That’s just _awful_.”

Peggy’s mouth quirked as she sat upright again. “I said I didn’t name it.”

“I mean, if you really, really wanted the letters to spell out ‘shield’, there are so many ways you could have gone. Strategic...Home...no, homeland. International? That’s okay. So’s espionage. But Law-Enforcement? Ugh. How about Logistics. Logistic would be so much better.  Seriously. Even I’m better at naming things than that. And it really says nothing about what you guys _do_. So what do you do?”

She thought about all the different ways she could answer and decided that with McKay, blunt was best. “As far as you’re concerned, we find potentially useful technology, determine what it does, and make sure that it does not fall into the wrong hands.  Always presuming our hands are the right ones.  And we take technology from the people who would do harmful things with it. We do our best to see that the world is safe. That people can sleep in their beds at night without fear that the world is coming to an end. Are you in or not?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to work for an organization with a name as asinine as yours.”

“Pity.  Dr. Erskine seemed to think highly of you.”

McKay shrugged. “Biochemistry is really not my thing. Too mushy. Too much room for unexplained reactions. I liked Erskine, though. I was sorry to hear about his death.”

“You came highly recommended from Dr. Zelenka as well.”

McKay blew air through his lips with a little _pffft_ of sound and waved his hand as though whisking away a fly. “Wait. Is Radek is working for you?” He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

It was her turn to smile enigmatically. “Now, Dr. McKay, you know I can’t answer questions like that unless you agree to come on board.”

He squinted at her for a moment, and then adjusted his hat more firmly on his head. “Nope. I’m out.” He stood up, weaving slightly at the sudden movement and hanging on to the edge of the table until his world stabilized.

“That’s too bad,” Peggy said, getting to her feet rather more gracefully. She opened her purse and left money on the table for the drinks. “Mr. Stark will be disappointed to hear that. He was looking forward to working with you.”

“Mr. Stark?” McKay was back to blinking foolishly at her, much as she’d done when she first sat down. “Howard Stark? Of Stark Industries?”

“Yes. I believe you’ve heard of him? Mr. Stark will be instrumental in leading our research and development division.” With a little shrug of regret, she turned to walk away.

McKay caught up with her before she’d made it halfway to the door. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Seriously, if you’d mentioned Howard Stark from the beginning, instead of giving me that song and dance about God and country...come on then. Take me to where ever I need to be and let’s get this show on the road.”

“Excellent.” Peggy smiled at him as he held the door open for her. “I believe he has a Giant Ring needing a power source that he wants your opinion on as soon as possible.”

The air outside the bar was deliciously cool and damp after the heat of the pub. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the abrupt change in light. She interrupted McKay as he was excitedly chattering on about the Egyptian find and what it could possibly be. “My driver will be picking us up at 06:00 to drive us to Southampton. There we’ll catch a steamer to New York. I presume you’re already packed to go as well?”

The fresh air seemed to sober up McKay even more than the conversation in the pub had done. “Yes. I’d planned to drive down to Southampton tomorrow myself and take a room there until my ship left for Cario. I already sent my trunk ahead to the docks.”

“I’ll see that it gets transferred to the Queen Mary. Perhaps you should consider staying at my hotel this evening. We’ve got an early start planned.”

He nodded as they walked. “I don’t have much. Just a kit in my car. Damn.” He pulled up abruptly and snapped his fingers.

“What?” she asked.

“My car. I still need to get it to Southampton. I’ve got a friend who’s picking it up there. I told him he could have it.”

“We’ll see that it will get there.” She didn’t think McKay should be driving.

“You think I’m squiffy.” McKay was insulted.

“I think,” Peggy said, keeping her voice deliberately casual as they started walking again, “that perhaps we’re not the only people interested in your services.”

A car on the street in front of them suddenly turned on its headlights. McKay threw his hands up to shield his eyes while Peggy squinted and listened hard for their attackers. She wasn’t disappointed. Two men sprang out from the darkness on both sides in an attempt to pinch them in a scissors grip. She had to leave McKay to defend himself; he was blocking her access to the second attacker.  The man that rushed her obviously thought it would be a simple matter of throwing her to the ground so that he and his cohort could bundle McKay away with them to the car. She obligingly allowed herself to be pulled toward him, but instead of collapsing into the ground as expected, she drove her left fist into his stomach while simultaneously stomping her heel into his instep. It was very satisfying to hear his howl of pain be cut off with a whoosh of air as she knocked the breath out of him. As he doubled over, she drove the point of her elbow into the back of his neck and he fell in a heap to the pavement.

Unfortunately, he took her purse with him.

McKay was struggling with the man who was trying to frog-march him toward the car, which had a back door open, ready to receive him.  Unable to take the time to retrieve her gun, she grabbed the second assailant by the collar, jerking it back and down with all her strength. He twisted in her grip like an eel, barely managing to stay on his feet, but he couldn’t do that and hold on to McKay at the same time.  McKay swung wildly with inexpert skill but when one of his punches connected with the second attacker, there was the sound of crunching cartilage. Cursing, the man kicked McKay’s legs out from under him, and he went down, pinwheeling his arms in an attempt to stop his fall.

Holding his nose, blood streaming down over his hand and staining his teeth when he snarled, the second attacker faced Peggy in the headlights. He pulled a short knife out of his pocket and came at her. Peggy blocked his thrust with a downward chop of her hand and then spun on the point of one heel to drive her other foot into the man’s stomach. His forward momentum met her more powerful kick and he wheezed as he fell to his knees, coughing and gagging. Peggy followed through with a roundhouse kick to the side of his head, and he fell over, unmoving.

 _Never leave your attacker in a position to follow you. Show no mercy. Disable. Cripple. Survive_. Colonel Phillips’s words rang in her ears as she straightened. She had to get McKay and her both out of the headlights. Two down, and at least one more to go.

She tugged at McKay’s shoulder. “Move it, McKay. Into the shadows.”

The report of a gun went off so close that it rang in her ears. She felt the sting of something tearing into her arm and for a split second, she thought she’d hurt herself trying to move McKay. Then reaction kicked in and she dove out of the light. She clapped her hand over her shoulder and felt the warm ooze of blood between her fingers. Damn. She’d liked this suit.

To her satisfaction, McKay had rolled out of the main beams of light as well, though both of them were still terribly vulnerable. McKay was scrabbling across the pavement into a side alley, which was smart of him unless it was a dead end. She thought about her options and reached around on the ground beside her, coming up with a fistful of gritty dirt. _England, my England_. Well, it was better than nothing. Timed correctly, she could blind her assailant if she got close enough.

The driver of the car came at them walking confidently through the light cast by the headlamps, convinced he was in the superior position here by dint of his weapon. _Idiot_. Ah well. Let him underestimate her. They all did.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t interested in her. It was McKay he wanted. With terrible certainty, she realized that whoever was after McKay had probably stipulated that if they couldn’t have him, no one could.  McKay was a dead man if she didn’t do something.

She got to her feet and stumbled toward the entrance to the twitten where she’d seen McKay disappear. Urgency lent stability to her legs and she hurried forward, hoping she wouldn’t be too late.

Inside the narrow alley, McKay stood with his hands up, facing his attacker. He held her purse in one hand and the lid of a garbage bin in the other. She had to give him points for courage, despite the fact he was obviously afraid.  His assailant stood with his gun raised, hand steady as he pointed his weapon at McKay.

“Oh, thank God,” McKay said, inexplicably giving her position away. The gunman turned to look over his shoulder, and in a flash, McKay threw her clutch at her as though he was a quarterback in a football game.  Startled by the movement of something flying past him, the gunman was momentarily confused as to which target to aim for, but decided Peggy was the lesser threat. He was turning back toward McKay when the lid of the bin came flying at him like some sort of Roman discus. Roaring his rage, he knocked it to one side. It fell with a clatter to the ground.

The dirt in Peggy’s hand fell back to the ground from whence it came. She caught the purse neatly, felt the grip of her pistol within, and lifted her hand. The bullet caught the gunman between the shoulders. He went down in slow motion like a tree being cut down, knees buckling at first, and then he fell face down to the ground. 

McKay stepped over him as though he was a giant spider that had been vanquished, and hurried up to Peggy.

“Are you all right? You’ve been hurt! What should we do about all this?” He waved a hand helpless back at the dead man. “We can’t just leave them here like this, can we?”

Peggy fought a sudden urge to giggle. She didn’t giggle. “If I can get a ride from you back to my hotel, I will call someone to take care of things. You owe me a suit and a new purse, McKay.”

She allowed McKay to take her arm. She could use the support, to be honest. She could feel the adrenaline rolling off him in waves. “Is this what working for S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to be like? Because that was kind of intense.”

They walked past the other men lying on the ground and down the lane, as though nothing had happened.

“No, not every day. Think of it more like hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror.”

He snorted, more exhilarated than nervous.  She let him babble on, rehashing the moments of the fight and what he’d been thinking and why he’d acted in the manner in which he had. She paused him for a moment as she reached into the car and shut off the headlights, collecting the registration of the vehicle from the glove compartment and shutting the doors.

When they reached his car, she stopped him again. “What I don’t understand, Dr. McKay, is why you tossed me the purse. You knew it had my gun in it. Why didn’t you use it?”

McKay blinked at her as though she’d said something incredibly stupid. “Well, but you’re the trained field agent. I’m just the scientist. You had the best chance of disabling him, whereas he would have just shot me dead.”

She did laugh then, the amusement bubbling up from deep within, from a font of light and laughter that she’d thought she no longer had a right to tap. “It didn’t occur to you that I was just a woman? You were willing to let yourself be rescued by me?”

“For heaven’s sake, I’d have let Lassie save me if she’d been here.” McKay sounded irritated by the question and it made her laugh again.

“I think, Dr. McKay,” she said as she got into his car and leaned back into the seat, “that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

~fin


End file.
